NDP encouraged by all-party support of inshore cod quota motion

June 3, 2015

NDP Parliamentary Leader Lorraine Michael (MHA, Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi) says it was heartening to see all parties in the House of Assembly rally around her private member’s motion in support of rural Newfoundland and Labrador today.

The motion called on the House to “urge government to call for the federal minister to reaffirm the federal policy of returning the first 115,000 metric tonnes of northern cod quota to the adjacent inshore harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador.”

Michael says she brought the motion forward because of recent actions by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans that fly in face of the adjacency principle. It has been a longstanding federal policy that the inshore sector should have priority of access to the northern cod stock.

However, says Michael, the decisions of federal fisheries minister Gail Shea on shrimp and halibut allocations are causing concern that the federal government might yet again cynically ignore previous decisions. This, she says, would be a fatal blow to the revitalization of rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

“When we talk about rural renewal in this province, a vital part of the recovery has to be the industry that created rural Newfoundland and Labrador in the first place,” she said. “And that is the inshore fishery.

“I am delighted that all parties in the House today supported this important motion and I look forward to the message going firmly to Ottawa.”